Asperger's and the Mother of all Disincentives to Work, Education and Having a Life

DH strung out trying to survive as parent of young adult with Asperger's

Thanks to the interplay of the irrational policies of Centrelink and DOH, DH is staring down the barrel of unemployment again with maximum nuisance not only to herself but to her employers.

To get a grip on this saga of policy folly, you need to understand that DH is the parent of a young adult with Asperger Syndrome, aka Autistic Spectrum "Disorder", or AS. AS can be thought of as primarily a disorder of social communication. It is neither a physical or intellectual disability, nor a mental illness, though for people with AS, depression and anxiety go hand in hand with the strains of being "odd people out" in a demanding world that doesn't understand their limitations. Parents of people with AS are carers by virtue of the constant psychological strain of dealing with their demanding, "loner" offspring, of advocating for them, of constantly being on call to troubleshoot from cradle to ... well, the totally inadequate Disability Support Pension. While both Labor and the Libs now recognise AS and are beginning to fund support programs for children, the first wave of AS children (AS was only recognised by the medical profession in the late 80's) are now in their early twenties. They need a lot of specialised support in employment, education and housing, but so far this is barely on governmental radar.

But in the meantime, parents of AS children are having a hard time being recognised as carers for the purposes of Centrelink. AS people do not need constant supervision, they love being alone!, and they don't need personal care, (if you don't mind being totally embarassed in public in the company of a normal, often very good-looking young adult who lacks the co-ordination to brush their teeth or their hair properly). The only trouble is that while they may love being alone, aloneness is detrimental to their wellbeing, they actually need social interaction same as anyone else, and thus their parents are carers by virtue of needing to be their sole friends, by needing to constantly be on hand to fight fires, to explain odd behaviours, to deal with official business, to explain a bewildering world,

Thus it was that DH gave up trying to stay on the Carer's Pension, which prohibited her from working more than 15 hours, (and GET THIS! that 15 hours included travel time), while not giving her enough money to live on. NEvertheless, it was an important safety net for herself and child, allowing her reduced taxation, subsidised medication and transport costs.

However, she was then put on Newstart, and 'assessed' (nice way to talk about a human being BTW. In DH's youth, the only thing that got assessed was an insurance claim). Anyhow, she was assessed as being capable of 30 hours work and forced to find it. How many jobs are there that employ someone for 30 hours??? In short, DH was forced to find fulltime work, despite the extraordinary strains she lives under as an unrecognised carer.

So now we see that with fulltime work,

• no concessions on medications or transport,
• DOH throwing her straight into rental stress by dropping her in the deep end at 30% of her gross wages (despite the fact that she never sees 10% of that as it goes to HECS, HELP, SPSS (Educational Supplement)

not only is DH only a few dollars a week better off than on the disgracefully, miserably low Carers Pension, but her employers are suffering as well.

With the constant stress, DH;s immune system is up the creek. She has been coughing her lungs out for several months, and if this blog was an Opera, she'd be singing her final deathbed aria by the end of this post. Not only that, her life is a constant round of visits to psychiatrists, councillors, employment agencies, social workers on behalf of her daughter. She only averages about 3-4 days a week. She is constantly tired, the work is not getting done. Being a responsible worker, she feels constantly guilty, she is stressed out constantly by the decision of whether to take a day off and lose pay (she's on an hourly rate, no holiday pay, sick pay).

DH, like many of her friends who are educated, working sole parents or carers, and live in public housing are finding it almost impossible to make ends meet.

No joke, folks.

Carer's Week is over, and this is still not a life.

How to earn $1210 a week, and end up only $187 better off than the poor sods on Newstart! ERRATUM:

ERRATUM: DH has major egg on the face. She got it all wrong, as explained in the comments section. She's not as poor as she thinks and actually has $394 a week to pay for all the items in green. It's not brilliant but its survivable.

A new spreadsheet will be uploaded when she has the energy.

[Note income = $1050 + $160 (young adult child's generous (!?) disability pension)

Disposable Income???

$394 (234 + 160) must cover:

FOOD, MEDICATIONS, EDUCATION, REPAIRS, CLOTHES, MEDICAL GAP FEES, DENTAL AND OPTOMETRY COSTS, BANK FEES, SAVINGS, holidays, entertainment, textbooks, courses, educational excursions, white goods, furnishings, doctor's visits, hospitalisations, memberships, subscriptions, charity donations, cultural events.

SAVINGS??? What savings?

CAR? DH has long ago turned necessity into a virtue, and consoles herself that she is choosing not to own a car, rather than priced out of it.

HOLIDAYS??? DH and child have not been able to afford a holiday away in longer than 2 days away in the last 2 years.

DH considers herself fortunate not to be renting in the private market. She has NO IDEA how private renters survive the current housing crisis, totally sympathises, and hopes it will not create a climate of prejudice and downward envy of public housing tenants. It is too easy for populist governments to divide and rule battlers by setting the weak on the weaker.

At least for the first 3 months, with a TEIS* rebate, she will be better off by abt $419, and can hopefully catch up on some of her needs.

*TEIS: Tenant Employment Incentive Subsidy, whereby rent doesn't change from full subsidy for 3 months.

Punitive new regime at CRS (Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service)

Another unheralded "nasty" from the Howard Hoons. CRS, formerly known as the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service, as of 1st of July, has been forced to turn over its booking schedule to the tender mercies of the Kafkalink computer system. As readers of this blog know, Centrelink has a computer system that couldn't go two rounds with a headless chook.
What this means for the clients of CRS, and other disability employment services is, that people with disabilities requiring these specialist services, will now be subject to the same punitive system of breaches as all the other Serfs in Kafkalink's Empire of NoChoices for a $240 odd a week. It's nothing less than a system of Industrial Conscription/
BTW, here for your edification is Centrelink's absurdist definition of disability:
If you have a disability that is chronic, and stable, and under control, you are obliged to work 15 hours a week.
If you have a disability that is undiagnosed, not stable and not under control, you are obliged to work 30 hours a week!
Go figure!!!!
Now how many jobs are there that offer just 30 hours a week?
So it's 37.5 hours a week for you my friend!

John Howard has his way with DH at last ...

... and she must admit she's rather enjoying it. There she is, sitting back in a comfy ergonomically designed chair in air-conditioned surrounds, being plied with coffee and cake by smiling co-workers, making her small contribution to society, while the dollars roll in ... and out again ... according to Nature's Eternal Law of Return (Tax Return subdivision) . For as it is written, what the department gives, the department takes away again.

But seriously, this "Welfare to Workhouse" gig aint half bad, the Workhouse just aint what it used to be.

Work tragedy: BBQs from Hell

DH has a strong personal stake in this story. Her father, one of the best men in the world, worked as a salesman for Barbecues Galore, till he died in 1995. DH is confident that Barbecues Galore's owners and slavedrivers will have their own little private rotisserie in hell. DH's father worked as a shop assistant six days a week, with only Wednesdays off. And Thursday mornings, so that he could do the late shift for late night shopping, one of the most banally evil practises dreamed up by Capitalism. All this for a wage that barely paid for rent plus maintenance on the old lemon that got him to work. As the carer for DH's disabled mother, he was not able to take on a more agressive career path, and as a renter, he could not afford to retire. It was heartbreaking that he missed out on all the social activities that took place among his friends and relatives on Sundays, so that ultimately a fragile family already affected by disability and low income, was further isolated and removed from its remaining social supports. BBQs from Hell unconscionably used the letter of the law to deprive DHs father of whatever tiny benefits he may have got.

For instance, DH was HORRIFIED to discover that despite working unsociable hours for 6 days a week, BBQs galore refused to pay her father full holiday pay, arguing that as he only worked 4 week days, his holiday pay could be pro-rated accordingly.

This is the reason why DH foams at the mouth whenever Howard talks about his "Family Values".

Any political party that talks about Family Values at the same time as refusing to endorse the basic tenet of Judaeo-Christian civilisation, the preminence of the Sabbath day of rest, will surely have their place reserved in the big Rotisserie for Hippocrites down below

From todays SMH

(See also below, research findings that indicate that mental health may be declining due to work stresses in what is now the hardest working country in the world)

Work killing the family, report says

Matt Wade March 6, 2007

AUSTRALIA has emerged as one of the most intensely work-focused countries, but it is creating a human tragedy.
Research has found a strong link between long and unpredictable work hours and the breakdown of family and other relationships.
Australia is the only high-income country in the world that combines very long average working hours with a high level of work at unsocial times - during weeknights and weekends - and a significant proportion of casual employment.
These work patterns are making employees unhealthy, putting relationships under extreme stress, creating angry, inconsistent parents, and reducing the well-being of children, says the report by Relationships Forum Australia, titled An unexpected tragedy.

Go Maxine! ... and deliver us from the Right Hon. Mr "Banality of Evil"

...thinking of the "budget surplus" extracted from the nation's rotting teeth, the choking of public housing, the ruination of childcare subsidies, the disgraceful transfer of funding from the poorest schools to the richest, the harassment and villification of battlers while pretending to be on their side, the transference of wealth from the working poor to the big end of town, the punitive and humiliating regimes of Centrelink, the gutting of Centrelink subjecting welfare recipients to bungle after bungle and desperation-inducing delays in payment, the breaches of the weakest, the deliverance of the effective CES (Commonwealth Employment Service) into the hands of unscrupulous private operators, for blurring the hard won boundaries between church and state, the tolerance of extremists if they happen to be Exclusive Brethren, the wedge politics, the non-core promises, the attempts to stifle dissent, most recently the unbelievable attempt to make individuals pay for organising boycotts, the Serf "Choices", the trashing of the ABC, the conscription of people with disabilities into pointless low paid jobs, the training of strike breakers in a Moslem state, while subtly stirring up race hatred at home, the fear campaign on terrorism used to supress civil liberties and freedom of the press, the toadying to that pathetic little jackanapes Bush in the Iraq debacle, Christmas Island, the detention centres, Siev-x, the Tampa, the undermining of Habeas Corpus with the Hicks case ...

But thanks for the free "Be Alert but Not Alarmed" fridge magnet!

How come there are so many mentally "ill" anyway?

We know that "Reshaping Public Housing" will turn public housing estates into dumping grounds for people with mental "illness". Honestly, has DH gone mad? Did the last 40 years of Western history never happen? What happened to the insights of the 60's, of the socialists, the feminists, the sociologists and anthropologists, the social constructions and the post-modernists? When did we revert to a medical discourse and start using the old discredited term "mental illness" as if it was all there was to know about human grief, despair and struggle? What happened to the basic tenet of Sociology 101: private troubles are public and political issues etched into the the individual body?

DH has long wondered whether in fact the incidence of mental "illness" is increasing. While some mental illness is undoubtedly genetic in origirn, or has organic causes, how much of it is socially constructed? What if many of the depressive and anxiety disorders are actually a byproduct of the speeding up of time, the lengthening of work hours, insecurity about being able to make a consistent living in the global economy, of time poor families who can't get together because of 24/7 work regimes? How many addictions are attempts at self-medication, or a panacea for the meaninglessness of consumerist life?

New evidence as reported in the 7.30 Report http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s1836677.htm yesterday suggests her hypothesis might have been right.

• The once mighty bronzed laconic Oz are now the hardest working nation on EARTH! More than the JAPANESE for Christ's sake (the Christ of the Proddie Work Ethic anyway). More than the Yanks, more than the Germans! You know you don't vant it, pussycats.
  
• In 1963, 65% of the mighty Oz worked a 5 day, 9-5 hour week. Now its only 8%

A research project at ANU's College of Medicine and Health Sciences have been studying the impact of workplace changes on a sample of 2,250 ACT workers, half public servants, half not.

The study shows strong associations between long hours/ high job insecurity and depression, anxiety and visits to the GP.

A spokesperson for the project said that this level of job demands and long working hours is not going to be sustainable in the future. It's going to have an effect on people's mental and physical health, it's going to be a burden on the health care system. That in itself is going to be a large cost for the nation

SEE??? DH TOLD YOU SO!! :-)

NOTE TO LIBERAL VOTERS

You want workers to be cheap? You want 24 hour service? You want public services to be reduced?

You're already paying through the nose for public services like public housing (aka free range mental hospitals), more police to contain drug addiction, crime and other acts of desperation, not to mention the PBS cost to the nation of anti-depressants is going through the roof.

You, silly, silly, SILLY people!

To blog or not to blog

To blog, or not to blog: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to concentrate all efforts on getting paid work
Else suffer the slings and arrows of Howard's outraged rightwingers and resentful taxpayers

DH is pondering whether to let John Howard and now even Kevin "Et tu" Ruddus have their way with her at last. The idea being that the only arbiter of moral worth in this age is the possession of paid work. Everyone must be out there, sick or well, manufacturing communion wafers or generating reams of paper, or something. From the viewpoint of a truly just god, not the Time-Keeper God of the Protestant Work Ethic, DH is trying to work out whether morally, she is of more value to society as a blogger, a carer, a volunteer and a community facilitator, than as whatever square hole Job Network manages to stuff her into. DH believes that she more than earns that $280 a fortnight she has left after rent in terms of real social value. But perhaps she is deluded. Perhaps she would be better off in some regular group enterprise.

Scene from a Workhouse

Talking about communion wafers, DH once visited X Industries, a huge factory run by a Church which shall remain nameless, providing work to people with intellectual disabilities, pressing out communion wafers being the chief of them.

At the time that Howard and co were preparing their new welfare to work schema for disabled people, and this workplace was considered to be a exemplar of the foreshadowed changes. DH was at that time working for a government department instrumental in this process and was there to interview the factory supervisor on their methods.

For the length of the interview, a young man with Down's Syndrome, sitting alone at a worktable, was wailing loudly and piteously, while being completely ignored. As DH and the supervisor left, the supervisor called out harshly to the young man, words to the effect of "Oh, stop your wailing and get on with it". Seeing DH's look she said something like, "Oh, pay no attention, he's always like that, there;s nothing wrong with him, he's just an attention seeker".

This scene has always been engraved on DH's conscience, as a metaphor for the unknowable consequences of welfare to work.

DH is right into political correctness, but not beyond reason and her own intuition. As the parent of a disabled child with strong links in the disability community, she knows that some disabled people come to us straight from hell. There is not always a good, normal person trapped in an unwieldy body, desperate to emerge, but being prevented from it by a lack of government funding. Such people can only be managed. For all DH knows, that young man was stuck in some kind of neurochemical hell, and there was actually nothing more that the workplace could have done. But all she knows is, if that was her child, she wouldnt have wanted him there for a moment to be left to wail alone. It was not an attractive place. Who knows what goes through the mind of someone with an intellectual disability, stamping out communion wafers day after day, week after week? Is it any worse, in kind, from being able-bodied and a checkout operator, or process worker? Who knows.

Just a thought.

A Christmas Carol for Our Times

or, What the Dickens is this country coming to?

Mummy, who are the Merry Gentlemen in the picture?
Hush darling and eat your Christmas gruel.

But mummy, why do the gentlemen look so merry?
Because they have a Monopoly of the Government which means they can do whatever they want.

Can they stay up as late as they want and never have to go to sleep?
Hush now darling, and let me tuck you in. Mummy has to go to work now.

But Mummy, it's Christmas!
Yes, darling, but Mummy traded away her Christmas holiday to buy you your lovely gruel, remember?

B-b-but mummy, I don't like my gruel anymore.
Yes darling I know, but after Mummy paid the mean landlord from the D'oH 30% of her wages, plus 30% to the ATO, plus 6% to HECS and 4% to repay her Austudy Supplement Loan, and on top of that because she is a contractor, 9% of her wage to fund her own super, she had to spend the rest of her wages on buying your drinking water, so she didnt have any money left over to buy turnips this year.

Mummy, will we have turnips for Christmas next year, do you think, if I am very, very good?
Yes sweetie, because Mummy has joined a Union, and they will fight for our right to eat turnips every year!

What's a Union, Mummy?
Well, once upon a time, long long ago, when the land was flowing with latte and honey, before everyone worked 60 hours a week with no overtime or penalty rates, for $3.50 an hour, Unions used to fight for our Rights.

What are "Rights", Mummy?
SHH!!! Don't ask so many questions! Someone might hear us! And anyway, mummy can't remember anymore

But how did the unions fight for our Rights, Mummy?
Well darling they used to go out on this thing called a strike.

Could we go out on a stwike, Mummy?
No darling, we would have to pay a big big fine, like a billion zillion trillion dollars, and the mean men could put us in jail.

Don't worry mummy. I'm going to SHOOT those mean men with my GREAT BIG BLASTERATOR, and I'm going to buy you as many turnips as you can eat EVERY Christmas!

Suddenly, a mighty crashing and banging is heard from the chimney:

And then, in a twinkling, was heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of many a hoof,
As mother and child were turning around,
Down the chimney a figure leapt out with a bound

EVERYBODY FREEZE! DROP YOUR WEAPONS!

We have reason to believe that you have been spreading SEDITION and inciting a minor to call the Prime Minister a "Nasty Little Meanie". And I'll take that Blasterator, Sonny. One more stwike and you're out!

As for you, valued Centrelink Customer, No. CRN 125 904 038, it has come to our attention that you do not have a Treating Practitioners Report in triplicate explaining why you are late for work. Therefore the terms of your individual contract are now void.

Thanks to Government Reforms making Australia Fairer,
You're Breached!

And with that, the SAS storm trooper tore the workhouse ID tag off the Mummy's ankle, and smashed his way out through the front door.

I'm scared Mummy.
Don't worry darling. We'll go down to Vinnies, and we might be able to convince the nice old 12 Step Veterans down there to give us some yummy tins of recycled beetroot and creamed corn, some No Frills tuna in bilge, and if we're very lucky, even some instant mashed potato flakes!!!! Now wont that be fun?!

Season's Greetings
One and All

This is Australia,
2007

The poster boy for Howard's "Family Values"

Mal Brough is desperately trying to put damage control on this, but here's the picture of Howard's real family values.

The Liberals paint themselves as "Christians" in a cynical grab for the religious right's vote, but they are the very embodiment of Darwinism.

Their every policy single-mindedly promotes the survival of the fittest in the open market, (read, jungle).

And yet the troglodytes of the bible belt, whose analytical capacities don't go beyond stampeding at the crudest symbolism, fall for it every time.

What has Howard done to our beautiful country?

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/cancer-boy-ruled-not-sick-enough/2006/10/12/1160246262816.html

Welfare to Workhouse: Howard's "Deadbeat Dad" state abuses the bride and abandons the kids

DH has been reading a new report Poverty and Family Life under Welfare-to-Work: The Continuing Failure of Welfare Policy. (Helen Cameron, University of Sth Australia)

It's a great kick-ass report even if it does state the bleedin' obvious. After years in the big filing cabinet for human creativity called University, DH has been browbeaten into accepting that we need this kind of work to stick it to policy wonks in language they can't turn their noses up at. And, of course, preparing this kind of study does keep the middle classes off the streets and feeling important. DH is not knocking it - she may well end up being tidied up into something similar again soon. She's not about to turn her nose up at the last boat out of under-class stigma, marginalisation, and lack of status.

Though give DH a good cartoonist anytime to say the same thing without the verbiage.

But for those of you who get off on this kind of earnest thing, here are some great quotes.

The welfare-to-work "solution" can be thought of as a match made in hell. It puts poor mothers who need the most support and flexibility into jobs in the low-wage labor market which often are the most inflexible [and] have the least family-necessary benefits (Albelda 2000, p.32).

Meahan (2005) notes the ‘precarious positions of single parent families’ under Workchoice policy and about this pushing parents into an underpaying labour market without any beneficial impacts on their life chances or those of their children

[We should avoid ...] any approach that further demonises these families through suggesting they are responsible for their circumstances. ... our silence about poverty[... is] part of a social redefinition that dampens empathy and blocks any transformation of the circumstances of the poor. These parents are raising the next generation however and any processes that further limit these families’ life chances is an act against the future.

Read the whole thing at

http://www.uq.edu.au/swahs/welfaretowork/HelenCameronPaper.pdf

Welfare Bermuda Triangle

Can the Bermuda Triangle migrate in the manner of the hole in the ozone layer? If so, it's hovering right over DH"s place.

Consider all that has gone missing lately

• Letter from Centrelink promised Wed Sep 13 (see below) advising DH of her work capacity test appointment (without which she has been told she cannot join Job Network
• Response from D'oH to job application sent several months ago. (DH just rang to inquire, but was advised that decision was made ages ago and she didnt get the job. However no courtesy letter saying yay or nay has been rec'd from our ever efficient department)
• Application form for another position in D'oH promised 5 days ago
• One charity volunteer supposed to bring Electricity Vouchers (great move from Howard. Charity means never having to say "We're accountable", on the ground that it's charity and recipients should be grateful)
• Food vouchers from charity. (see previous point on accountability). "Oops, we forgot to bring them, but never mind, we'll send them tomorrow with our other volunteer" (see previous point on missing volunteer ).
  That was a week ago. Just as well DH borrowed money from elsewhere to tide her over
  
• And last but not least, D'oH contract tradespeople are notorious for disappearing without trace on the appointed day

OTOH, this theory breaks down somewhat when you consider the deluge of paperwork that arrives from Centrelink - see the little beaudies on the right...

Charity means never having to say "We're accountable"

As we know, the 3 Stooges, 'Bad Daddy' State is offloading its welfare responsibilities to charities, by the tried and tested principle that whoever has a heart will eventually pick up the tab. They know that the bleeding heart Mummies of the Nation, (whether it's nurses, teachers,pr the good ladies of Vinnies) will work miracles on low, or no, pay.

After 7 weeks of unemployment DH has only received about $280 from Centrelink (Yes, for the benefit of the Downwardly Envious, DH has been looking for work, and does have something lined up, but still has to eat and pay bills in the meantime.) She has had to approach various charities for electricity vouchers, food vouchers and financial assistance.

DH believes that Social Security is, as its name implies a form of insurance for all of society. As a taxpayer for over 30 years, DH feels she has more than paid her premiums to tide her over in her times of need.

The charities have helped her and she appreciates their effort. But she is depressed by their naivety, and for all the grief they give "the poor" as a result. DH doesn't want money in the name of a mythical Jesus with a reputedly bad attitude on things she holds dear, such as a Woman's Right to Choose, or the rights of homosexuals to love who they want. No, DH wants the rights that were fought for by generations of unionists, reformers, and socialists. If we left social policy to the religious, women like DH would still be veiled and begging on the outskirts of town.

Charity is demeaning. Why should DH have to explain her life situation to strangers who have little education, or understanding, who know nothing about disability. Why should DH have to feel guilty because these poor souls turn up after a hard days work and she wasnt home when they called, even if she wasnt told they were coming?

What on earth are they thinking when they ask you "How much money do you need?".

Consider DH's inner dialogue:

Oh dear. What shall I say??? What is a fair amount?

If I get it wrong and ask for too much, will they think I am a bad selfish person? Will I be depriving others who are more needy than myself? I wonder how many other clients they've had this week? Am I even needy, or am I just a bad person who's not pulling their weight in society? Is my child really disabled? Am I really fatigued and depressed? Am I a dead loss to society if I don'tget a job at Woolworths as a checkout crone? How much longer can I afford to keep paying for private health insurance? ... yet if I stop now, how will I pay for my child's wisdom teeth extraction?

Yet, if I ask for too little, will I end up with less than I could have got?

Why should DH have to explain a disability that the volunteer ladies don't understand. Why should she feel desperate to prove that she is not making it up? Hasn't she had enough grief already? .Must she dramatise all the dramas of her life, which are bad enough as it is without having to turn on a royal command performance?

And what about the charities that ask you to put together a budget of all your expenses, including clothes, outings, entertainment?

HULLO! How much do YOU think we spend on entertainment and clothes from a weekly income of $250 after rent, which must still pay for transport, food, utilities, medications, school fees, telcom, .

Then there's the billionaire philanthropist who has set up a fund to give out food vouchers (from his own company ... one can only imagine the tax breaks he's getting. Why doesnt he just bloodoy well pay up his taxes and pressure his political cronies into maintaining a decent social security system?) (and where the hell is Kerry Packer when you need a good whipping gent?) Anyway, you can get the billionaires vouchers if you can get past the suspicious termagent who guards the phone... What they havent figured out is how you're supposed to get the shopping home - since the billionaire's company doesnt have a shop in your area, of the $100 voucher, $20 goes to the taxi fare home with the shopping.

Oh well, thank God, in our Brave New Australia, gotta be grateful we have food vouchers...

DH has to confess that she just spent $40 on a little black dress. But it was discounted from $120! She needed it to attend "drinks" for a leftist Labor politician, so she could hold her own amongst the Labor Glitterati without having to be ashamed of looking like a houso...

Howard's "Deadbeat Dad State" does a runner

Howard's Daddy State is acting like an abusive husband toward his welfare bride and dependants.

DH's Newstart interview yesterday, left her reeling in shock with the Howard Government's absolute contempt for natural justice, (details in next blog entry), and got her thinking.

If Howards Centrelink had a personality, what would it be?

Consider the profile of a battering husband.

1. Control freak. Wants to know every aspect of bride's movements. Suspects bride of being in sexual relationship with any person of the opposite sex who enters the house, and will send spies to check her toothbrush collection if necessary.
   
2. Paranoid tendancies. Needs constant reassurance of bride's fidelity. Forces her to keep diary detailing every movement, and checks it regularly
   
3. Belittles and demeans bride at every opportunity till the downward spiral of low self-esteem becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Humiliates her in public at every opportunity.
   
4. Financially abusive. Is filthy rich, has money to burn when it comes to private detectives to keep bride under surveillance, and for junkets with his big-end mates, but controls domestic purse strings so tightly that there is barely enough to feed the children. Bride cannot afford decent clothes or haircuts so becomes shame-ridden and begins to hide away from friends and networks that might support her. May dream of escape, but without the busfare to town, never makes it. Besides, husband has used clout in local chamber of commerce to run domestic violence shelters out of town.
   
5. Has his way with her whenever he feels like it.
   
6. In public passes himself off as pillar of community.

Shame on Hillsong: Enforcers for "Welfare to Work(house)"

Hillsong will get at least $650 of the $1600 stripped from unemployed people for minuscule breaches of Howard and Cronies' draconian Welfare to Workhouse rules. No other church group will touch it.

The Howard crew are happy to use Hillsong despite their shady past. Hillsong was stripped of a $414,479 federal grant this year amid claims it obtained the funds by deceiving the Aboriginal community that was supposed to be a beneficiary. (SMH).

Give them a call at and tell them what you think at 02 8853 5353.

Is DH a dole bludger?

DH has received two comments recently advising her to "get a job" and stop being a drain on the taxpayer. While 2 letters are hardly a statistical sample, we all know that their content is representative of the currents of resentment in the community. These are the currents that allow Howard and Co's Wedge Politics based on stereotypes and misinformation to get workers to cut off their own noses to spite their faces. Like bulls at a red rag, both DH's readers jumped straight to the conclusion that DH was a habitual dole bludger, when the reality is that she has held a variety of very responsible jobs (see her profile). Most of her periods of unemployment were years ago. before her child went to high-school.

 

Her search for work is subject to the demands on her as a carer of a dependant with a disability. She has various health issues of her own commensurate with her age and a lifetime of stress, having no family support whatsoever and no assets and resources other than her wits, often dimmed by depression. She works hard but cannot work fast, and its a moot point whether the economy will be better off with her gumming up the works somewhere. 

 

Nevertheless, rest assured,  she will be foisting herself and her various ailments on some unsuspecting employer any day now. But with the Right's Welfare to Work(house) jamming square-pegged employees willy-nilly into the first available round-hole jobs, all she can say is "Caveat Employer".

Day 1: ... and already, the bungling begins ...

DH rings Centrelink to advise her intention to claim a welfare payment. Advised by poorly-trained young Centrelink call centre worker to apply for Newstart rather than Carer's Payment because Newstart pays more!!!

Oh dear. News for Centrelink staff. Newstart pays about $100 less than Carer's Payment, and is taxable to boot.

But let's put this down to human error and move on, it's only day 1 after all.

Day 0: Unemployed again!

Balance Sheet: Ezybanking: $35.50 CR. Mastercard $1418.15 DR; Daughter's account: $93.68 Cash on hand; ~$15 + half a jar of 5 and 10 cent pieces. Investments: Nil. Car: Nil.

DH is unemployed again as of today.

Alas, lest she find herself in breech of some arcane new Kafkalink ruling, she must draw a veil of mystery over the circumstances of her severance, and can only say that her contract ended.

However, let her whisper the words "Work Disincentive" in your shell-like. There wasn't much financial carrot in the job, once D'oH had had their cut, once she lost her pensioner subsidies on things like transport and medications, (whose main purpose was to keep her tottering off to work in the first place).

See "$181 a week. How far can you stretch it?" below. She was only a few dollars better off than she was on the Carer's Pension, except that she was perpetually exhausted, and stressed out to boot, since her caring duties had not lessened one whit.

So since she baulked on the carrot of "Welfare to Workhouse", let Centrelink do its worst with the stick.

As a service to the public DH will be faithfully charting her descent through the

9 Circles of Centrelink Hell:

Follow her, if you dare, as she passes through the Dolourous Gates marked:

Through me the way is to eternal dole*;
Abandon all hope, o, ye who enter here.

LET THE BUNGLING BEGIN!

* Of crse, Dante meant a different kind of dole, but it seems prophetic anyhow

The Scabs of Hillsong

The established churches won't touch the repellent and unChristian policies of the Howard Government.

 

But you can trust Hillsong!  They're at it again! Willing to go wherever there is a buck to be made.

 

Of the $1776 (8 weeks Newstart) the Howard government will rip out of some poor unemployed single parent for microscopic breaches of the new "Welfare to the Workhouse" "reforms", $650 will go to Hillsong.

 

What for?

 

To help the self-same wretch claim back their $1776 so that they can feed their kids.

 

And that's not all, Hillsong will get a "counselling fee", no doubt well spent on counselling the poor on how to live without food for 8 weeks. Praise the Lord and pass the Bread and Water Ration.

 

 

 

Note to Hillsong:

Christians are meant to touch the scabs of the poor,

not be the scabs!